Video: great white breaks into shark cage

If you've ever wondered why cages are necessary when diving with great whites, the experience of one South African honeymooner may prove enlightening.

The man, named in the video as Roger, had chosen to celebrate his nuptials with a spot of recreational shark diving off the popular resort town of Gansbaai.

However, he was afforded a bigger-than-expected thrill when an eight-foot shark ignored the bait outside the cage and instead rammed the steel bars.

The 30-second video shows the shark thrashing wildly to release its head from the cage as the diver swims below the animal's gaping jaws.

South African Bryan Plummer, who was on his first shark-diving expedition, captured the footage, along with the reactions from others watching from the deck.

"A shark totally ignores the bait and goes straight for the cage!! He gets his head inside the cage, while fellow diver Roger (who got married the day before), acted quickly to swim below the gaping sharks mouth and to avoid any injury," Plummer said.

Fortunately, the shark eventually frees itself and swims away, leaving the diver shaken but unhurt.

The Gansbaai resort town, near Cape Town, is colloquially known as the great white shark capital of the world on account of the vast numbers of great whites which congregate in the area.

This is not the first time an over-inquisitive shark has broken through the bars of a shark cage.

In 2005, a British tourist had lucky to escape when a much larger specimen broke through the bars.

The tourist was forced to swim out of the top of the cage before being pulled to safety by the boat's captain, who fended off the shark with blows to its head.